Wilkinson found at New Orleans, in his own words,[132]—
“A body of two thousand undisciplined recruits, men and officers with a few exceptions sunk in indolence and dissipation; without subordination, discipline, or police, and nearly one third of them sick; ... without land or water transport for a single company; medical assistance for two thousand men dependent on two surgeons and two mates, one of the former confined to his bed; a majority of the corps without paymasters; the men deserting by squads; the military agent representing the quartermaster’s department without a cent in his chest, his bills protested, and he on the eve of shutting up his office; a great deficiency of camp equipage; not a haversack in store; the medicine and hospital stores scarcely sufficient for a private practitioner.”
The General decided that, first of all, the troops must be removed from the city and sent into camp; but rains made encampment impossible until the river should fall, and May 12 nothing had been done excepting to notify the Secretary of War that in the course of the following week the General meant to select an encampment which would be so placed as to meet an attack from every hostile quarter.[133] His decision was made known to the Secretary of War in a letter dated May 29:—
“With the general voice of American and Creole in favor of it, I have selected a piece of ground on the left bank of the Mississippi, below this city about four leagues, which I find perfectly dry at this moment, although the surface of the river, restrained by its dykes, is in general three feet above the level of the country. You will put your finger on the spot, at the head of the English turn, just where the road to the settlements on the Terre aux Boeufs leaves the river.”[134]
June 10 the main body of troops moved down the river to the new camp. More than five hundred sick were transported with the rest, suffering chiefly from chronic diarrhœa, bilious or intermittent fevers, and scurvy.
Secretary Eustis, who in March succeeded Dearborn at the War Department, being an army-surgeon by profession, noticed, before Wilkinson’s arrival at New Orleans, the excessive proportion of troops on the sick-list. Quickly taking alarm, he wrote April 30 directing Wilkinson to disregard Dearborn’s previous instructions, and after leaving a garrison of old troops at New Orleans, to transport the rest up the river to the high ground in the rear of Fort Adams, or Natchez. The orders were peremptory and pressing.[135]
This letter, dated April 30, should have gone, and was believed to have gone, by the post which left Washington May 6, and reached New Orleans May 25; another post followed a week later, and still another arrived June 8, two days before the troops moved to Terre aux Boeufs. According to Wilkinson the letter did not arrive by any of these mails, but came only by the fourth post, which reached New Orleans June 14, after he and his troops were fixed in camp. The cost of a bad character was felt at such moments. No one believed Wilkinson; his reputation for falsehood warranted suspicion that he had suppressed the orders in the belief that he knew best what the troops required. Such insubordination was no new thing on his part. Instead of expressing regret, he wrote to Eustis that even had he received the orders of April 30 in time, he should still “have not sought the position you recommended,” because the labor of ascending the river would have diseased nine tenths of the men, the expense would have exceeded twelve thousand dollars, and the position of Fort Adams was ill-suited for the protection of New Orleans.[136]
On the troops the first effect of their encampment was good; but after the middle of June rains began, generally several showers on the same day, and the camp was deep in mud. The number of sick made proper sanitary care impossible. The police officer’s report of July 12[137] gave a revolting picture of the sanitary conditions: “The whole camp abounds with filth and nastiness of almost every kind.” The sick-list rose to six hundred and sixty in a force of sixteen hundred and eighty-nine non-commissioned officers and men; in August it rose to nine hundred and sixty-three in a total force of fifteen hundred and seventy-four. The camp was a fever hospital, the suffering beyond experience. Food, medicine, shelter, clothing, and care were all wanting either to the sick or to the well:[138]—
“The sick and the well lived in the same tents; they generally subsisted on the same provisions, were equally exposed to the constant and incessant torrents of rain, to the scorching heat of the sun, and during the night to the attacks of numberless mosquitoes. They manifested the pains and sufferings they experienced by shrieks and groans which during the silence of the night were distinctly to be heard from one end of the line to the other. It is my candid belief the mosquitoes produced more mischief than any other cause. In the night the air was filled with them, and not a man was provided with anything like a bar or net. Thus situated, the sufferings of the unfortunate sick can perhaps better be imagined than described.”
Before the army had been a month in camp, the officers petitioned the General for removal. He could not but refuse. He had no means of escape, and to do him justice, he bore with courage the consequences of his own mistake. He did whatever occurred to him to protect his men. Secretary Eustis took the matter less calmly. No sooner did the secretary learn, through Wilkinson’s letters written in May, that he seriously meant to encamp the troops at Terre aux Boeufs, than official orders, admitting no discretion, were despatched as early as June 22 from the Department, directing that the whole force should be instantly embarked for Natchez and Fort Adams.